Staggering changes deftly chronicled by a seasoned historian.
A dense but smoothly recounted history of Istanbul’s transformation from parochial imperial capital to multinational modern city.
A scholar of wide-ranging interests and nimble prose, King (International Affairs/Georgetown Univ.; Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams, 2011, etc.) finds in the history of the Pera Palace—first established in 1892 in what was then a fashionable neighborhood of embassies on Istanbul’s European side of the Bosphorus—an elegant entree into Turkey’s complicated coming-of-age. Around the turn of the century, the city was choked by migration from the countryside, scarred by recurrent earthquakes and fires, and finally crisscrossed by a railroad, an extension of the glamorous new line of the Orient Express. Adapting the Pullman model, Belgian engineer Georges Nagelmackers instituted the European version of the sleeping car for luxurious accommodation on the long trip between Paris and the gateway to Asia, Istanbul. The Pera would offer a continuation of that modern European comfort. The first decades of the 20th century brought cataclysmic change to Istanbul, with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and occupation by multinational forces at the end of World War I. In this atmosphere, the hotel became the center of Allied administration and its nearby streets, “a shocking testament to Istanbul’s newfound libertinism.” This was not lost on Turkish officer Mustafa Kemal, who rallied the nationalists for a war of liberation, ending with the declaration of the Turkish Republic of 1924. Bought by a Muslim businessman in 1927, the Pera remained a beacon of cosmopolitan licentiousness between the world wars—within a city roiling with bars, alcohol, music and Western films—yet it eventually became part of a shift to a more Muslim, Turkish, homogeneous population that began producing its own popular culture. The emancipation of women, flirtation with leftist ideals, struggle to remain neutral in World War II and use as a transit point for the exodus of Jews posed unique challenges to this vibrant city.
Staggering changes deftly chronicled by a seasoned historian.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-393-08914-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Occasionally unfocused, but redeems itself by putting a vivid, human face on an unimaginable nightmare.
A ground-level illustration of how the plague ravaged Europe.
For his tenth book, science writer Kelly (Three on the Edge, 1999, etc.) delivers a cultural history of the Black Death based on accounts left by those who witnessed the greatest natural disaster in human history. Spawned somewhere on the steppes of Central Asia, the plague arrived in Europe in 1347, when a Genoese ship carried it to Sicily from a trading post on the Black Sea. Over the next four years, at a time when, as the author notes, “nothing moved faster than the fastest horse,” the disease spread through the entire continent. Eventually, it claimed 25 million lives, one third of the European population. A thermonuclear war would be an equivalent disaster by today's standards, Kelly avers. Much of the narrative depends on the reminiscences of monks, doctors, and other literate people who buried corpses or cared for the sick. As a result, the author has plenty of anecdotes. Common scenes include dogs and children running naked, dirty, and wild through the streets of an empty village, their masters and parents dead; Jews burnt at the stake, scapegoats in a paranoid Christian world; and physicians at the University of Paris consulting the stars to divine cures. These tales give the author opportunities to show Europeans—filthy, malnourished, living in densely packed cities—as easy targets for rats and their plague-bearing fleas. They also allow him to ramble. Kelly has a tendency to lose the trail of the disease in favor of tangents about this or that king, pope, or battle. He returns to his topic only when he shifts to a different country or city in a new chapter, giving the book a haphazard feel. Remarkably, the story ends on a hopeful note. After so many perished, Europe was forced to develop new forms of technology to make up for the labor shortage, laying the groundwork for the modern era.
Occasionally unfocused, but redeems itself by putting a vivid, human face on an unimaginable nightmare.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000692-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005
A feast for students of ancient history and budding historians of any period.
A delightful new translation of what is widely considered the first work of history and nonfiction.
Herodotus has a wonderful, gossipy style that makes reading these histories more fun than studying the rise of the Persian Empire and its clash with Greece—however, that’s exactly what readers will do in this engaging history, which is full of interesting digressions and asides. Holland (In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, 2012, etc.), whose lifelong devotion to Herodotus, Thucydides and other classical writers is unquestionable, provides an engaging modern translation. As Holland writes, Herodotus’ “great work is many things—the first example of nonfiction, the text that underlies the entire discipline of history, the most important source of information we have for a vital episode in human affairs—but it is above all a treasure-trove of wonders.” Those just being introduced to the Father of History will agree with the translator’s note that this is “the greatest shaggy-dog story ever written.” Herodotus set out to explore the causes of the Greco-Persian Wars and to explore the inability of East and West to live together. This is as much a world geography and ethnic history as anything else, and Herodotus enumerates social, religious and cultural habits of the vast (known) world, right down to the three mummification options available to Egyptians. This ancient Greek historian could easily be called the father of humor, as well; he irreverently describes events, players and their countless harebrained schemes. Especially enjoyable are his descriptions of the Persians making significant decisions under the influence and then waiting to vote again when sober. The gifts Herodotus gave history are the importance of identifying multiple sources and examining differing views.
A feast for students of ancient history and budding historians of any period.Pub Date: May 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-670-02489-6
Page Count: 840
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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